Thursday, February 6

Today I woke up around 9, showered, and helped the family go through the whirlwind stress process of packing up the car. Whenever we go anywhere, Nancy likes to be prepared with food, plates, silverware, even a thermos of hot water to drink tea on the road. In the afternoon, we drove to Talca, which is about a 2 hour drive but passed so fast for me because I had finally updated the music on my iPod for the first time since arriving in Chile. When we got to the grandparents house, we had a lunch of humitas with tomato, and then Maxi, Eric, Nancy, and I drove into the center to find a notary for some documents Maxi needed to get his US visa. I really wanted to walk around and see the center of Talca, so Nancy came with me. We walked around for a while and went into different stores to look around.

We found another one of those letters for the world cup in the center, and we signed it and took pictures. Now my signature will appear on two different letters cheering for Chile in the summer.

Then we went into the mall and had coffee and pie together. We had a great conversation there where Nancy really opened up and told me all about her life. She told me about the huge family drama they have with Eric’s side of the family (his dad disowned him for choosing to marry Nancy) and about how she wishes she had had more boyfriends before marrying Eric, her first real boyfriend. We talked about how the expectations of women are different here in Chile, and it was just a really nice, open girl talk which is exactly the thing I miss most about having my mom with me. We got back to the house in collectivo. When we arrived, Josefa, Flo, and Tio Rodrigo were there and everyone was getting ready to eat dinner. We talked for a while after dinner, and then I excused myself to go for a run. It seems that I drank way too much tea during dinner because I had to return to the house 3 times during a 50 minute run to go to the bathroom. They made a lot of fun of me and told me I was forever forbidden from drinking tea. After I showered and got in my PJs, I went outside to play escoba with Monse, Eric, and Tata, but I was really tired so I decided to go to sleep early. Side note: I’ve been sick for almost a month now (since Techo). Like I don’t feel sick or anything but I had a really bad cough and a runny nose. My family keeps trying to cure me with these homemade remedies. I had to eat bread with a spread of lemon, garlic, and chili pepper on top. I also drank beer with a bunch of lemon and salt dumped in. Then they gave up and gave me antibiotics, which I was really bad about remembering to take, but my cough finally disappeared anyway.